Sao Paulo Reaches the Top for The 1st Time

By: Bruno Romani | October 31st, 2008

The 32nd round of Campeonato Brasileiro saw another club reaching the top. For the first time since the beginning of the tournament, São Paulo has the same amount of points as the leader. Now, both São Paulo and Grêmio have 59 points, with Grêmio being the leader for having one more victory than São Paulo.

The mid-week round had another “final” with Grêmio visiting Cruzeiro. Before the leader could even think about their 1-0 victory against Sport in the previous round, Cruzeiro jumped ahead. With 14 seconds into the match Wagner scored for the home team. The early goal shocked Grêmio, and Cruzeiro took the chance to control the rest of the matc with the duo Wagner-Guilherme delivering a great performance. In the second-half, Jonathan and Guilherme increased the lead and killed Grêmio, who watches round after round the title evaporating. The victory not only prevented Grêmio from keeping distance from the clubs fighting for the title, but also allowed Cruzeiro to get really close, with 58 points.

The other club very satisfied with this score was São Paulo, whose visit to Botafogo ended in a 2-1 victory for the visitors. Like the Cruzeiro match, this one put face to face two rivals fighting for top positions, as Botafogo still dreams with a spot in the Copa Libertadores. All the goals happened in the second-half. São Paulo opened the score board with Jean, defensive midfielder who seems to be a “new Hernanes” (remember his name. good player detected). Wellington Paulista tied for the locals. The match became dramatic. And after a nice save by Rogerio Ceni, the real Hernanes scored in a counter attack. The 2-1 shows that São Paulo is going to have a robust final sprint.

In São Paulo, Palmeiras also took advantage of Cruzeiro’s match to get closer to Grêmio. The team played ok to win the match against Goiás by 1-0, goal by Alex Mineiro from the spot. Palmeiras won after 3 matches and reached the 58 points. But the fans real concern is the bad performances the club has been delivering.

Finally, Flamengo visited Vitória and the two clubs had to wait as the lights went off with 5 minutes into the match. 25 minutes later, the match restarted, but somebody forgot to wake up the players. The first-half was dragged and ended in 0-0. The second-half started and midfielder Marquinhos, one of the new talents of the tournament (remember his name. Your heard here first), tried to take Vitória to victory. However, Flamengo had the best chance in the feet of Léo Moura, but he missed it. The 0-0 took Flamengo from the top 4. But the club seats only 3 points behind Grêmio.

Relegation

The round also had two direct fights with clubs trying to escape relegation. Portuguesa received Ipatinga and Vasco received Atlético-PR. In the first match, Fellype Gabriel scored twice to take Portuguesa out of the relegation zone, and make things even harsher for Ipatinga, who was having the debut of coach Enderson Moreira.

In Rio, the 2-2 was bad for both clubs, as the two remain in the relegation zone. But things could’ve been worse for Vasco, as Madson tied for the home team with 5 minutes left. Vasco is another traditional club making its way down to second division. Sad.

The other club to join the relegation zone was Naútico. In general, a 1-1 with Inter in Porto Alegre is not bad, especially because Naútico scored with a few minutes left, but given the situation of the club, the draw did not help.

Figueirense and Fluminense, another match with 2 clubs fighting against a ticket to second division, was postponed. The lights went off when Flu was leading 1-0. The players waited for 2 hours and the problem could not be solved.

Boring mid table results

Sport 1 – 1 Santos
Coritiba 2 – 1 Atlético-MG (2 great goals and a blunder)

Goals:

Cruzeiro 3 – 0 Gremio